


Christy meets Kilgrave

by Christyflare



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Episode 8 adaptation, Kilgrave getting fixed, Mind Control, Telepathy, no it's not that easy, overpowered oc - attempt at not sue-ing it, yes telepathy's involved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-11 02:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christyflare/pseuds/Christyflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, I'm bad at titles... And yes, my character's codename is Flare, and I have had the idea of her for a long time, hence my username.</p><p>Basically, my character is a telepath, amongst two other things, and I figured that Kilgrave might be fixable with a little help. This fic runs under the assumption that Kilgrave is a psychopath only because of his experiences and getting his powers WAY too young, so he's basically just a really big spoiled brat and is kidlike in many ways.</p><p>Yeah, it may or may not have been like that on the show, but it was never made that clear, and this is my fic, and I get to do what I want with it! More in the first chapter notes, and Kilgrave will appear in the second chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter Flare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this sort of crosses over with the X-Men universe portion of the MCU, but since Christy is my own character and the only cameos we’ll have are Professor X and maybe Beast, it’s mostly Jessica Jones. Kilgrave was originally supposed to appear in the first chapter, but the beginning got away from me a bit, so he’ll appear in Chapter 2 instead.
> 
> Christy’s powers will be explained a bit more in story, but the important one here is telepathy. I always thought that telepathy would have been cool to see on the show, even though it would be kind of a plot-breaker and would defeat the purpose of the show. Still, that’s what fanfiction is for. Yes, Christy is over-powered, but this shouldn’t be too Sue-ish, despite it being a fix-it fic. Her codename is Flare, and yes, this character is what I based my username on.
> 
> This is definitely an AU. This follows the assumption that Kilgrave was not born a psychopath, but became one due to his childhood experiences, possibly a bit of that brain disease doing some damage, and getting his particular powers at around 5 years old (‘cause come on, we’ve all seen spoiled brats, and when literally nobody can say no, really, it was probably never going to end well).
> 
> And no, I do NOT condone anything Kilgrave has done to Jessica. Nor do I believe that he loves her. What he feels for her is more stalkerish obsession and fascination than anything. And it’s not exactly going to be an easy fix, even with telepathy, and no, Kilgrave is not going to have a nice time getting ‘trained’ to be good and ‘taught’ empathy.
> 
> Timelinewise, in this story, the Incident happened 19 months ago and Jessica was caught by Kilgrave 5 months later for 8 months before the 6 month break when she though he was dead. This takes place during Episode 8.

The second I heard about this Kilgrave guy on the radio, I practically ran to the prison where Hope was being held to see if there really was a mind controller out there that Cerebro hadn’t found yet. If true, it probably meant the guy was not a mutant and probably not telepathic, so I had to check in with the prof after running into him just in case my unique brand of mental shielding didn’t stop the guy. I even had to let the guy put failsafes in me to avoid disaster in that case. It made me nervous.

Arriving at the prison and trying not to think too hard about worst-case scenarios, I casually leaned against a wall and closed my eyes, reaching out my mind to make contact with the guard at the front desk.

Luckily, he knew Hope’s cell number and general location of said cell – a benefit of being such a famous prisoner for the time being –, so I reached out my mind to that area and looked for someone who identified as ‘Hope Schlottmann’.

The instant I touched her mind, I knew. Definite signs of mind control, and her memories verified that after checking out to be true memories. Not the telepathic kind, either, according to the feel of it. I wondered what the source was.

Though wow, the state of her mind right now… I debated with myself what to do before deciding that I had to try to help, even though it probably won’t turn out well.

I paced around a bit trying to figure out how to not make things worse with as little power use as possible before going through proper channels to visit with her.

If it really goes pear-shaped, I can always erase my existence from here, though I really hope that won’t be the case.

As I was lead to the visitation room, I reached out to Hope’s mind to see how she was. I felt her being led to the room again and her anxiety over it. She seemed to want to see someone named Jessica, so I probed as to why.

Yeesh. This Kilgrave guy really is a piece of work. Well, at least now I know a bit more about how to talk to her, which was part of the point of the probe.

When I entered the room, Hope was already seated at a table in the back of the room, and both inmates and guards milled around, sparing a quick glance my way before going about their business.

As I approached her, her head lifted to watch me, and a look of disappointment crossed her face. I sensed that I was not the person she was hoping to see. Probably Jessica.

“Hello Hope,” I said as I slid into the seat across from her.

She gave me a wary look.

“Hi,” she murmured in a sort of timid sad way.

“I’m Christy, and I’m here to ask you about Kilgrave.”

Her face twisted into a dismissive and derisive scowl, and her next words confirmed the direction her thoughts were going.

“Here to tell me I’m nuts or making this up and am an awful person?”

I sighed.

“No, Hope. I believe you. He’s not the only one out there with powers, nor the only one with mind control.”

She gave me a somewhat more hopeful version of her earlier wary look, and I didn’t need to be a telepath to know that she wasn’t sure about trusting me yet.

Still, she was calm enough to be encouraging to me, so I continued.

“I have this… group… and it’s more that I’m part of the group than anything… and so far, we’ve kind of had a tendency to run into bad people with powers a LOT lately… Anyways, usually we’re pretty good at finding them, but this one seems to have snuck under our radar for a while now, so it’s worrying. Unless of course, you’re his first?”

She looked down and shifted in her seat.

“Thought so. Do you know who else he’s gotten to in the past?”

She was silent for a while while she processed everything I told her. The general tone of her thoughts gave me an idea as to what her next words would be, and sure enough…

“So… this group of yours… You have powers, too?”

“Yeah.”

“So what can you do?”

“Uh, well… Hoo boy, this is tough,” I sighed out loud, rubbing my forehead and shifting in my seat a bit.

“Okay, look, you’re probably going to freak out, given your situation…”

She put two and two together REALLY fast.

“Oh. My. ***. You’re a mind controller,” she gasped, scooting back her chair.

Her fear spiked, but she was actually too scared to scream, and I could sense a sense of hopelessness come over her, as she clearly thought I was going to take control of her and that it would be useless to do anything.

“Not like him!” I squeaked, yes, squeaked, bringing my hands up, wincing, and scooting my own chair back.

My reaction, rather than my words, made her fear stop rising and a wary confusion take over, though she was still terrified.

“Y-y-you a-aren’t going t-to…” she stuttered.

Before I could answer, a guard came over.

“Is everything alright here?” she growled.

I looked over at Hope.

She looked between me and the guard, before telling said guard, “Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little panic attack. I think I kind of freaked her out.”

The guard looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I think we just startled each other is all.”

She didn’t look too convinced, but after looking between us a couple of times, she warily went back to her post, keeping an eye on us the whole time.

Hope stared at me.

“D-did you…?” she asked nervously.

“Actually, no. I don’t like using this power. It’s creepy. Which answers your previous question before the guard came. No, I’m not going to control you. You’ve had enough mind control to last a lifetime, am I right?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“That said… If you want anything… specific… I’ll do it for you.”

She gave me a suspicious look.

“Specific how?”

I squirmed before answering, “Well, maybe if you wanted to not feel so scared all the time, or be able to do track again without freaking out, or anything like that, I can help, but only if you want me to. To be honest, I’m expecting you to say no, but I have to offer. But it’s still your choice.”

“So… you’re giving me a choice whether or not you mind control me?” she said incredulously.

I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Yeah, I know that sounds weird. Think of it like hypnotherapy, except more effective. And faster. And I still won’t be making you do anything or think anything you don’t want to, unlike Kilgrave. It’s definitely not your typical use of mind control. I don’t even like calling this version of it that. It’s telepathy. There’s a certain versatility there.”

“Wait, telepathy? You can read my mind?”

Ah.

I winced.

“Well, yeah. I don’t like using that much either unless the other person knows about it and is relatively okay with it or it’s a bad guy or something. And yes, I can hear what you’re thinking, but that’s more because you’re freaking out and are two feet away from me than anything I’m actively doing. In my defense, I AM trying not to. Though I did check to see if you were calm enough to talk about this stuff before I entered the room, sorry.”

Lots of emotions went through her at that before settling on nervousness and wary curiosity.

 _’So you can hear this?’_ , I heard her deliberately think.

I nodded.

She looked down.

I decided to explain a bit more.

“When I’m trying not to hear thoughts like this, I generally still get the sort of _tone_ of people’s thoughts. The emotions. The general direction of some thoughts without actually hearing the individual thoughts. And of course, if the person gets emotional about something, thoughts can get kind of loud, and I can’t help but hear them. I can sort of tune most of it out a bit if I have someone to focus on, so right now I’m more likely to hear your thoughts rather than that of anyone else in the room. Or the building…”

She goggled at that. “The whole BUILDING?!?”

I shrugged and glanced away. “I have a large range, what can I say?”

She paused for a bit, thoughts roiling.

“So you know exactly what I’m feeling right now?”

“Yes.”

“And thinking?”

“Sort of. Unless you think too loud.”

“So if I think about what you were asking about…”

“I won’t hear the specifics unless you shout your thoughts or think directly towards me, but I will sense the general direction of your thoughts and the emotions that come with it. If you want to me to leave and come back in a day or two so that you can think about it without me around, I will.”

She chewed her lip a bit before answering, “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea.”

I nodded.

“All right. Though you should know that what I’m proposing is less mind control and more… speeding up the natural healing process. By a lot. And it won’t be an instant thing either. And, at the risk of freaking you out more, it won’t wear off. But really, if I wanted to control you, I wouldn’t go through all this trouble, you know.”

Her fear spiked a bit, but as she thought about it, she calmed down some, though she was still understandably nervous.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a freaky thing to think about. Can’t be avoided, though, I’m afraid. Not the way the world is now.”

She looked at me warily before finally saying, “Fine. Give me two days to think about it. I’ll decide then.”

“Okay.”

I almost got up to leave when I remembered my other reason for visiting.

“Oh, Hope? I still do need to know more about Kilgrave. I need to find him and figure out what to do with him.”

Her eyes were hard as she said, “What if he controls you?”

I smirked. “Telepaths are notoriously hard to control. And I’m not going to let him see me until I’m sure he can’t affect me, even if it means using my own powers against him. How does his power work?”

“He tells you to do something, and you do it. He makes you _need_ to do it, and you can’t resist it, no matter how hard you try.”

“Then I just won’t let him speak until I’m sure he can’t control me. Telepathy needs no spoken word to work.”

She thought about that for a bit before saying, “Will you kill him?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do you _want_ me to kill him?”

“Oh yes,” she growled, and I winced at the intensity of her emotions as she said it.

“While that is an understandable sentiment, it really depends on what else he’s done and if he actually knows that what he did and does is wrong, and if he’s redeemable or not. With or without telepathic assistance.”

“He’s not redeemable.”

“Even so, don’t you think death is a little easy for him?”

“Make it long and painful.”

“I do try to avoid killing when I can. What about permanently disabling him from speaking ever again and putting him in prison?”

She thought about it and obviously didn’t like her own liking of the idea.

“I’ll let you think about that more after I leave. Though do try not to think of too many bad scenarios; it’ll just make things worse. And no, that’s not a command. My power doesn’t work like that. And I still won’t control you without your permission.”

She snorted a bit at that.

It took a couple of seconds for her to speak again.

“Kilgrave is after a woman named Jessica Jones. He made me kill my parents to get to her. He used to control her before he got hit by a bus and she got away months ago. Jessica said she was going to find him and clear my name. Try finding her, and you’ll probably find him a lot easier.”

“Thank you, Hope. Do you have any questions, or should I leave now?”

She chewed her lip again before answering.

“Would… would it help if you read my mind of everything I know of him?”

I winced.

“It might. But I’ll probably end up seeing more than either of us would like. Would you be okay with that?”

She looked and felt determined.

“If it helps you find him, then yeah.”

I bit my own lip.

“Can I get a raincheck on that? I’m really not sure how much it’ll help, now that I know about Jessica, and I don’t want to invade your privacy like that unless you’re sure about it.”

She considered it.

“If I agree to the… therapy… won’t you still see at least some of it anyways?”

Yeesh.

“Probably, yeah, depending on what you want me to do.”

“Then I’m sure.”

“I can tell. Thing is, I’M not sure. I’ll come back after I meet Jessica. If I need more information, she will probably have more in her memories than you do if she’s been looking for him. If she doesn’t want me in her head, I’ll read yours, if you’re still okay with it, that is.”

“But wouldn’t it be faster and speed things up if you just picked my brain right now? And wow, that sounded weird.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it by now. And technically yeah, I guess. I’m just REALLY uncomfortable about this.”

“Just do it, alright?” she said exasperatedly.

“All right, okay! Just give me a minute and try to focus on thoughts of him.”

She did so, and I steeled myself before diving in, doing my best to scan her memories without making her relive them.

All I got from THAT probe was a lot of disgust on both our parts and the fact that this guy was REALLY obsessed with Jessica.

We both shuddered as I pulled out of her mind.

“Sorry, ugh, that didn’t help much. Ugh. Oh, I knew I wouldn’t like this… Ugh.”

“It’s okay. Really sorry.”

“Nono, it’s okay, it was either now or later, but ugh… Not easy being a telepath…”

“Sorry.”

“Ugh.”

I shook my head a bit to clear it, then squeezed my eyes shut and pushed those memories back for the time being.

“Alright then, I’ll be off. Unless there’s anything else?” I tried not to wince as I asked that and failed.

“Sorry again,” she said, mirroring my wince.

“It’s okay.”

She was silent for a few seconds, then spoke.

“Could you… just for a minute or two, mind… but could you, you know, just make me not _feel_ for a bit? I’m so tired of feeling like this all the time, and I’d just like a minute or two to feel… okay. To feel good. Content. Can you do that, please?”

I was taken aback, I admit.

“Are you sure?” I checked.

She nodded, and I could feel her determination and desperation.

“Just for a minute or two, please. I need this. Kilgrave… he would make me feel good when I didn’t want to, but this time, I really want to. And this time, I’m asking for it. And maybe… just maybe… It’ll help me decide what I want from you later. Please.”

"What if you think later on that I planted an idea in your mind to accept the therapy or something?"

"Well, you just told me that possibility now, and it would be easier for you to just do it regardless, so yeah..."

I considered her for a bit before nodding.

“Okay. Since you’re sure. But to keep the guard from being too suspicious, will you let me put my hand on yours?”

She considered this for a second before nodding.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Thanks. Now try to relax as much as you can on your own. It’ll make this easier.”

“Okay.”

“Close your eyes. It helps.”

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes as instructed and took a few deep breaths before putting her hand out.

I put my hand on top of hers in what would look to the guard like a comforting gesture and closed my eyes.

When I sensed that she was calm enough, I reached out my mind to hers and enveloped it in a wave of comfort and contentedness, letting it seep into her thoughts and make her relax completely.

I pushed away all the fear, all the trauma, all the negative emotions, and let her just feel nothing but _nice_.

I held her like that, breathing with her, for a couple of minutes before slowly pulling out of her mind, letting the content feeling fade with me just as slowly to give her mind time to adjust to the change.

Some contentedness seemed to stay behind, but I sensed that that was her own and not mine.

I let go of her hand and sat back, letting her come back to herself.

It took another good minute for all of her emotions to flow back and then mix with her memories of what I did to her, then another minute for her to process everything and figure out how she felt about all of it.

I held myself back from saying anything in case it sounded too much like a command to her fragile mind.

When she finally opened her eyes and looked at me again, her eyes were wide.

“That… that… I don’t even know. That was surprisingly okay. That was… nice. Wow, this is weird.”

Then she gave a great big sigh of relief and breathed out a “Thank you, Christy. Thank you SO much! I really needed that.”

I nodded.

“You’re welcome. And yes, that contentment you still feel is your own, don’t worry about it.”

She squirmed a bit in her seat.

I winced and apologized, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll get used to the idea eventually.”

“Still sorry. Pretty much my entire group is already used to it and mostly don’t care, so it’s a bit of a habit… Sorry.”

She just gave me a look, and her thoughts said everything.

I gave her a good-natured roll of my eyes, and she grinned in response.

Figuring I was done here, I moved to stand up.

“So, two days?”

Hope nodded. “Two days.”

“When in two days?”

She frowned and concentrated.

“Well, today is Wednesday, right? So, Friday afternoon would be great.”

I nodded.

“See you then, Hope.”

“See you then, Christy.”

Then we both stood up and shook hands before parting ways.

I left the prison feeling pretty good about myself. This visit went a lot better than I expected it to.

Now to find Kilgrave.

And to do that, I’ll have to find Jessica Jones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s it for the first chapter!
> 
> I know, I know, I got a little carried away…


	2. Finding Kilgrave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so the X-Men aren’t part of the MCU, apparently, but they are part of Marvel, if only comics and stuff, and they aren’t MCU because of some legal crud over movie rights and stuff. But as far as I’m concerned, they’re in the same universe, so there.
> 
> Also, I was planning on the meeting between Christy and Kilgrave to happen this chapter, but it seemed kinda weak to just jump to it without saying how the heck she found him in the first place, and it got kinda long… So I’m posting two chapters at once. If you want to skim through it to get the general idea of what happens and then get to the really _interesting_ chapter, you can, though I’m hoping _this_ chapter has some interesting moments for you as well, especially since Kilgrave _technically_ appears in it, and so do Beast and the Prof briefly. And my theory about how Kilgrave’s powers work is there, too.

Turns out finding Jessica Jones is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I mean, Jones isn’t exactly a rare last name, and neither is Jessica, so I really wasn’t expecting to get anything from a random Google search.

Searching ‘Jessica Jones PI’ was a lot more useful. Thank you, Hope’s memories.

Still, apparently she doesn’t have much of an Internet presence (or a website), so all I found were random posts about her from clients, which were few and far between.

So I had to track said clients down and sneak a peek into their minds to find out at least where her office is.

Turns out her office is her apartment.

It also turns out that she’s apparently _never there_!

And the neighbours don’t know much about anything, though the next-door one seems to be missing as well, so I’m hoping he shows up at some point.

I DID hear about that Kilgrave support group that formed from the radio, so I tried tracking _them_ down.

Apparently they don’t meet that often.

I lucked out when I passed by the police station, hoping to track him by odd suicides, which, according to Hope, tended to happen a lot around Kilgrave.

There had been a big commotion the day before that had fear STILL radiating off of a bunch of the officers.

A quick scan of their minds told me what had happened. A lot of the officers were clinging to the idea of a weird joke like a lifeline, but the rest of them were still freaking out about it, since the suggestion wore off.

Needless to say, the ones still freaking out about it were a LOT more inclined to believe Hope’s story about being mind-controlled.

Hmm. Maybe I could use this.

I’ll have to think about it later.

Going from the memories of the conversation between Kilgrave and Jessica, I went back to the apartment/office to look for that clue he was supposed to have left for her.

In the middle of a mess in the closet was a smashed picture of a house with the words, “Home Sweet Home” crayoned on the back.

Oh that helps.

Wait – is that a street sign?

I looked closer.

Yup, in the reflection off some glass.

Birch Street and Higgins Drive.

Much better.*

Google Maps was my friend.

By the time I got there, though, it was nighttime.

Hang in there, Jessica.

Locating the correct house was not hard, considering the amount of terror coming from it.

Not to mention the guards with signs of mind control in their thoughts.

I decided that some recon was ideal here, so I just made the guards unable to notice me and hid under a window behind a bush so that I could focus more on the people inside than on the guards.

Once I got settled, I was about to cast my mind out to the people inside when I heard boots clomping down a set of stairs.

Intrigued, I scanned around and found that the bodyguard in there was under the least amount of mind control and had a weird sense of un-mind-controlled loyalty to Kilgrave for paying him, so I didn’t feel all too bad about using his eyes and ears to watch and listen to the events in the room.

Then the bodyguard, Hank (oh the irony of his name…**), was let out of the room.

Thankfully, he stayed close enough to hear everything, and that’s all I really needed from him right then, so I stayed with him.

I _did_ almost give myself away by snorting semi-loudly when I heard Kilgrave use the phrase, “Look at us! Super strength and mind control in the same room, it’s amazing!”

Oh man, he’d totally freak out if he saw the Mansion kitchen at breakfast!

I had to bite my lip to restrain myself when I found out that Jessica had killed someone under his command, though Kilgrave defended himself by saying that he didn’t specifically tell her to kill her, just ‘take care of her’. A quick scan later, and really, what else was she supposed to take from that command in that situation, especially under that stress? And if she hadn’t killed her then, he’d probably have just specified later, so, ugh!

The next thing I knew, there was the sound of a bottle smashing against a wall and a flare of compulsion in the maid and the cook, Alva and Laurent, that forced them to file into the room and press blades to the side of their necks.

I hopped into their minds so that I could prevent them from following through with it if I needed to, fully prepared to show myself if need be, mental shields at full strength.

Thankfully, the situation resolved itself, more or less, but I was tense all the way until Jessica slammed her bedroom door and Kilgrave went to his own chosen room.

Especially when that Simpson guy pulled his bomb idea on the house. This guy might be a problem later, judging by how obsessed he feels about killing Kilgrave, but for now, I just let him run off while I telekinetically disabled the bomb without anybody noticing.

Then I settled in and waited for everyone to calm down and go to bed.

I hated that removing the compulsions from everyone might end up doing more harm than good unless I stayed here until morning and showed myself, but that wasn’t an option.

Not only was I not going to risk my powers weakening due to lack of sleep (and I’m NOT sleeping out here!), but I didn’t want to risk them going out of control due to being pissy from lack of sleep. Especially with Kilgrave around.

Still, I needed to find out more about his powers, and he probably had a good bunch of that knowledge, so when he was asleep (and I MAY have helped that process go faster), I dove into his mind and rooted around in there.

Wow. I feel really bad for the guy now, though that doesn’t mean I’m excusing what he did. So he’d had his powers since he was five, and that was never going to end well, granted, but he DID watch TV and movies, so really, it’s not like he’s COMPLETELY ignorant of right and wrong. He just seems to have taken a lot of the wrong messages from said TV and movies. There does seem to be a bunch of brain damage in here, though, so that might explain it. Also the ‘spoiled brat’ effect. Still… If I just prod a few things into developing like they should and rebuild these empathy connections… Hmm. This looks actually fixable. It’ll take months, but still…

If I can safely talk to the both of them tomorrow, I’ll make the offer.

Speaking of which, he got his powers from the virus used to cure his brain disease, and the emittance of his virus is what caused infected people to follow his commands. So a blood sample brought back to my Hank, Beast, might shed some light on how to handle his power and if I should be able to shield against it or not. Presumably, I’ve already been infected, since I’m in his range, and my telekinetic shield isn’t up at a strong enough level to be airtight, so if he scans me, that’s even better.

I don’t have any syringes on me, though, so I was considering just using the virus already in my system for my Hank’s scans when I spotted something in his mind about them.

Okay, so Sufentanil is apparently bad for his powers, and wait. He has injectable anti-rejection drugs that he has to take once a week so that his stolen kidneys don’t fail!

Well, he was due for a dose anyways in a couple of days…

I snuck into his room, found the medicine, and prepped it for injection.

Keeping him asleep was easy as I injected him with his dose, and then I waited for the medicine to disperse properly into his bloodstream.

Then I broke the failsafes on the syringe that usually prevent it from drawing fluid back into it and used it to draw a large sample of his blood.

Then I helped his wound seal by telekinetically pulling the skin together and holding the blood vessels closed until a clot formed and the cells started sticking together.

I found a plastic baggie downstairs and put the syringe into it before leaving the house, passing by the servants on the couch and thankfully not having to keep them asleep, as they were deeply sleeping at the time. Granted, it felt like that was due to mind control as well, but still.

I got past the guards the same way as I did the first time and made my way back to the mansion.

The Prof was asleep, but my Hank was still in the lab and was _very_ excited to have something new to research and experiment on.

After going through the scanner and giving my blood samples, I was finally allowed to go to bed, which I gladly did.

I woke up just late enough to get the tail end of the breakfast rush and sensed the Prof and Hank both coming right as I finished.

“Morning Prof. Morning Hank.”

“Good morning, Christina,” they both replied at the exact same time, then looked at each other and laughed.

As the Prof rolled over to get some breakfast, Hank rushed around getting his, clearly having trouble waiting to tell me what he knew.

When we all finally sat at the table together, both the Prof and I turned to Hank.

I spoke first.

“Hank, we can both sense how badly you want to tell us, so just go already!”

His eyes lit up even more, but he hesitated and looked over at the Prof first, who nodded in encouragement, before launching into an excited tale of his findings.

“This is absolutely _fascinating_! This man’s virus is a work of pure _genius_! Granted, the mind control powers it bestowed upon him was likely not intended, as it looks to be a virus engineered to cure a rare brain disorder, but still! Mixed with his DNA, it provided him with the ability to produce a certain frequency with his voice that resonates with any of his virus that happens to be infecting someone, and this is what causes the compulsions! The virus infects the brain of the host, dormant, until it receives this frequency and causes changes to the brain that is likely consistent with the changes found in other mind control victims, though I would have to observe someone under his control and someone under yours to properly compare them. The frequency it requires probably has a range, so just being within earshot of him may not be enough to be compelled by his orders.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I read in his mind that his range is about 80 feet.”

“That was my estimate, yes.”

“What about my shields? Will they protect me from the compulsions?”

“They should. As you know, your mental shields, like all other mental shields, more or less freezes your thought processes in place, unchanging despite outside sources. Yours in particular even provide you resistance from some drugs and tend to push out other compulsions, so you really shouldn’t have any trouble with this. That said, you should probably keep those failsafes in until you’re sure.”

I grimaced and whined, “Aw man, that means I have to let him try to control me… You know how much I hate these things…”

“Well, better safe than sorry, Christina. There’s no other way for us to stop you if you get under his control, except for Paula*** if she surprises you, and you know how badly that would turn out.”

“I know, I know, but I still don’t have to like it…”

“Oh, and I almost forgot, but the virus dies out in the body after about 12 hours and is likely emitted from his body attached to some kind of chemical, possibly a pheromone.”

“Yeah, I got as much from his mind. 12 hours is the longest a command has ever lasted for him, and it’s been consistently 12 hours for everyone for years now.”

“Hmm, his virus must be adapting somehow. Or maybe maturing.”

I winced.

“Well, hopefully that doesn’t mean he will be getting that much stronger, at least not for a while.”

“I would need to run more tests on him. I will give you some syringes when you leave; see if you can get another blood sample or two from him. This way, you will not have to break any; it was difficult to get the blood out of the one last night without spilling it.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “You could have just called me, and I would have helped out.”

He waved away my concerns.

“You were clearly exhausted at the time. It was fine.”

“Still sorry.”

He just rolled his eyes and started eating his breakfast.

“I’m curious, though; I saw in his mind that he loses his powers when Sufentanil is used on him, even for a short while after he wakes up from it, and people under his control are freed during that time. How would that work?”

“Hmm…” he considered while munching on some buttered toast. “The drug may interfere with his ability to produce the correct frequency for the virus to resonate in people. As for those being freed during that time, it is possible that he forms some sort of quantum link with those he controls until the virus dies that is interfered with by the drug as well. You would have to bring him in for scans to confirm this, however.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what’s gonna end up happening one way or another. The method depends on what I can get him to agree to. That guy needs some serious therapy.”

Both the Prof and Hank silently expressed curiosity at that last bit, so I tapped my temple and asked, “May I?”

They both nodded, so I closed my eyes, focused on what I read in Kilgrave’s mind about his story, and sent the whole thing into both of their minds.

Being a telepath himself, the Prof only took two seconds to assimilate the information, but Hank took a couple of minutes to process it all.

While we waited for Hank to finish processing my info dump, the Prof and I had a mental discussion about how to go about the therapy if he agreed to it and how to get him to agree to it without telepathic persuasion. We also discussed the ethics of such things, what required permission, and what sorta didn’t.

When Hank came out of it, he put in a few words of his own, despite not knowing the specifics of my mental discussion with the Prof, and they both finished breakfast while I got ready to go out again.

When I finally came down minutes later, they were waiting at the door for me.

“Well, hopefully see you soon. I’ll update you on any developments,” I said to them.

“We will have backup on standby until you can confirm whether or not you are affected by his abilities,” assured Hank before handing me a packet of blood-draw syringes.

“And I will be monitoring Cerebro in case your failsafes are triggered and we need to send that backup to collect you and do damage control,” added the Prof as I took them and put them in my jacket pocket.

“Thanks,” I said nervously. “Hopefully we won’t need all of that.”

They nodded in agreement.

“Well, bye then.”

“Goodbye Christina.”

Then I thought of something.

“Hey, Hank? Do you think you could make some sort of antiviral for this thing or a vaccine or both? I’d rather not have to keep using an airtight shield around him if it turns out the virus can affect me through my mental shields.”

He thought about it for a bit before answering, even though I had a general gist of what he was going to say.

“I probably could, but the more samples I have the better. It would also help immensely if you found someone who was already immune to it, though that’s unlikely.”

“Thanks, Hank. See you guys.”

Both men nodded in acknowledgement, and I turned to leave.

And so, I left the mansion towards the house I found yesterday.

Arriving at the street, I steeled myself and walked towards the house.

Man, am I going to be pissed if I get triggered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ok, so this may not have been in the show, but short of having her go street by street scanning around, I had to do something to speed things along, so I’m going with this.
> 
> **This refers to the fact that she knows Beast, whose real name is Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy.
> 
> ***Paula is another of my characters. I wrote a bit about her over on the main fanfiction site, but that story is on indefinite hiatus due to a bunch of stuff. Basically, Paula ends up being as close to a perfect match to Christy as a non-psi can be. They usually end up in a stalemate in practice fights, but it really comes down to who surprises who. In a real fight, Christy could vaporise Paula if she can get the jump on her, but Paula can produce a screech that disrupts psi powers, so if she gets the jump on _Christy_ , she could knock her out if she’s close enough to hit her with one of her wings before Christy recovers. Getting the jump on a telepath, as you might imagine, is tough, so some distraction by other fighters is usually required. It’s a complicated enough thing that the mental failsafe idea is much simpler and a lot less risky. I’m considering bringing her into the story at some point, though.


	3. The Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, FINALLY! Okay, so the writing probably leaves much to be desired in this one, and it got kinda long, but hopefully it’s not too boring or jarring when there’s the odd info-dump… Comments would be much appreciated here!

When I got close enough to see the house, I saw an older woman leave and go to the next-door house (and a quick scan revealed no harmful compulsions, and the circumstances her getting compelled to leave at all got her no sympathy from me) and caught a glimpse of Kilgrave rushing into the house, presumably after Jessica, since he was shouting her name exasperatedly.

I almost forgot to make myself unnoticed by the guards in my distraction with the commotion. Almost.

I DID forget about the bodyguard.

And the servants.

The servants saw me first through the window, and I felt a compulsion to threaten a stranger by putting blades to their necks take them over.

Meanwhile, Jessica was yelling (true) accusations of rape at Kilgrave and the bodyguard had just spotted me and was opening his mouth to alert his client.

Too much was going on at once, so I did the first thing I could think of that wasn’t a ranged knockout pulse.

I put the servants to sleep, lowered them gently but quickly to the ground with my telekinesis while keeping the blades safely away, and made the bodyguard clamp his mouth shut and freeze all in the space of two seconds.

Now Kilgrave was demonstrating a distinct lack of understanding as to what constitutes ‘rape’.

Aaand the bodyguard was putting out lots of stress-type emotions at me. Seems he is under a compulsion to basically do his job, so I removed it quickly, which made him less stressed, but still unhappy about being unable to do his job.

Still, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the servants had passed out and was hoping that didn’t happen to him, too, so I let him watch, still frozen.

I was looking for a good spot to show myself when it came.

Jessica was yelling about how he raped her both mentally and physically, which made me cringe, when Kilgrave responded with this gem: “And how would I know, hmm?! I never know! I can’t tell whether someone does something because they want to or because I told them to!”

Well, a better opening couldn’t have been scripted for television.

I stepped into the room right then and there and casually interrupted with a “Well, you could always ASK.”

Jessica, who was facing me, actually gaped at me, fear and worry for me spiking through her mind, while Kilgrave spun around and opened his mouth.

Moment of truth.

I tightened up my mental shields as much and as fast as I could and held my breath.

“Stop! Tell me who you are and why you’re here! Now!” he cried.

Oh man, that is the WEIRDEST feeling! All the other mind control I’ve felt has always come from the outside of my mind, but this one almost felt like my own mind was rebelling against itself. Almost.

It did feel like a push from the inside trying to make me stop everything and blab, but compared to all previous mind controllers trying to control me, this was pretty pathetic in strength, though it would be overwhelming for pretty much any baseline or other non-telepath. I wasn’t kidding when I told Hope that telepaths were notoriously hard to control.

As it was, it just made me shudder and shake my head to try to clear out the weird feeling as I tossed off the compulsion like a bothersome fly.

“Ugh, weirdest. Feeling. EVER!” I exclaimed.

Kilgrave joined Jessica in gaping at me, more or less, though I sensed a flare of hope and relief coming from Jessica, followed by worry about how I did what I did and what it might mean.

Then it hit me that my shields worked and my failsafes went unactivated.

I pumped my fist into the air and yelled, “YES! It worked! YAHAA!” then did a little victory dance.

At the very confused looks from Jessica and Kilgrave and the confusion radiating off of a still frozen Hank the bodyguard, I froze, then settled myself while rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly.

“Yeah, sorry, got a little carried away there. I wasn’t sure my mental shields would work against this particular version of mind control, and I was NOT looking forward to my failsafes getting triggered… Don’t ask.”

Kilgrave considered this before realizing that his bodyguard wasn’t moving.

As his eyes flicked over to him, I said, “Oh, he can’t move right now, but he’d prefer to watch than sleep, so…”

Then I sensed that he was going to call for the servants, and as he opened his mouth, I said, “Oh, they’re asleep. Was kinda in a rush with you two arguing like that.”

Then I turned to Jessica and apologized, “Sorry about that, Jessica, there was just too much going on at once and they had blades to their necks.”

Jessica was clearly confused, and I stayed quiet when she opened her mouth to speak.

“What’re you talking about, and what did you just do?!?”

“Ah,” I answered, furrowing my brow. “Never got around to introductions, did I? Name’s Christy, since I’m not in uniform. As for what I did, well… When I got here, you two were arguing, the servants spotted me and held blades to their necks while Hank here saw me and was about to alert Kilgrave to my presence earlier than I would have liked. It was a bit much at the time, especially since the way you two were arguing wasn’t sounding good, so the fastest thing I could do was knock them out, put them safely down, and stop this guy here from moving. As for how… I’m a telepath.”

“You’re a mind-reader?” exclaimed Jessica, while Kilgrave looked intrigued, and Hank was feeling more and more frustrated.

I turned to Hank and told him, “If you want to move, you can’t attack me, alright?”

I felt a grudging acceptance from his mind, so I let him go.

He stumbled forward a couple of steps and shook his head before giving a little shudder and standing straight back into standard bodyguard position.

Jessica watched all of this and turned to me.

“You’re a mind-controller,” she gasped, barely restraining herself from stepping back in fear.

I shifted from foot to foot a bit while I answered, “Yeah, that too. And I can move things with my mind. And make fireballs, though that one’s a bit useless, really. But unlike Kilgrave here, I don’t actually like using it all that much, unless it’s with someone’s consent. And don’t give me that look; I’ve been used as a walking sleep aid a lot, amongst other things. No, that wasn’t a command; that’s not how telepathic mind control works. And sorry, but I can’t safely turn off my telepathy, and as long as you’re emotional, I’m gonna hear a lot, sorry.”

“Emotional?!? EMOTIONAL!?! I have every right to be go**amn emotional! _HE_ goes and pulls his usual sh**, then _YOU_ come along and pull even MORE sh** and expect me to be fine with it?!? Get the F*** out of my HEAD!”

“I AM! But emotional people broadcast their thoughts all the time, and I can’t block it all out! Not safely! And I never said you didn’t have a right to be emotional; you have more right to it than anybody here, but that’s just how it works with emotions, thoughts, and my sort of telepathy!”

I sensed that she really wanted to shout at me some more, but she was too scared to piss me off, in case I went all Kilgrave on her. But she was fighting tears already, so she just looked away and bit her lip, fear and stress coming off of her in waves.

I instantly softened.

“It’s okay, Jessica, you can yell at me if you want. I won’t get mad, and I won’t blame you. Your fear and stress is so strong, I could sense it down the street; it’s how I found out which house you were in. You should probably let it out at some point, and if I’m the one you take it out on, fine. If I shield myself with telekinesis, you can even punch me if you want. I won’t do anything. I promise. I know that probably doesn’t mean much coming from me right now, but it’s there. Please. Please don’t be so scared of me. I’m not like him. I’m not like Kilgrave.”

She raised her head a bit so she could see me out of one eye, desperately wanting to believe me, but being just too scared and scarred from being under Kilgrave’s control to let herself do that.

Kilgrave, who up until this point had been watching the whole scene with a fair bit of amusement, suddenly stopped being amused and instead became confused.

“You’re really that scared of me, Jessica?” he asked softly. “Why? I never hurt you.”

Wow. He genuinely believed that. This was going to take some serious work.

It got a response from Jessica, though.

Her head whipped up, eyes blazing and shining with a couple of unshed tears, and she screamed, “You RAPED me! You F***ING _RAPED ME_! You may have never laid a finger on me, but you sure as He** had no problem with making me hurt _myself_ whenever you felt like it! You dragged me every-f***ing-where, no matter if I was interested in it or not; you’d just tell me to enjoy it, and I couldn’t help it! I couldn’t do ANYTHING myself! I was barely ever allowed to so much as THINK! Always with the fu**ing jumping and smiling and ‘you like this’ and ‘you like that’ and ‘enjoy this, Jessica’! I was nothing but your sex slave, your _pet_ , your _doll_ to dress up and feed and fu**! All because, what, I had powers? Well, look, _she_ has powers, just like you; go play with _her_ instead!”

And with that, she stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

“JESSICA!” cried Kilgrave, making to follow her, but I held out a hand to stop him.

“Get out of my way, Christina!” he growled.

That weird feeling came up again, and I brushed that compulsion off, too, before grabbing him with my telekinesis and lifting him up off of the floor.

Hank started to protest, but I just gave him a look and he shut up, shifting uncomfortably a bit.

“Put me down!” yelled Kilgrave.

“Stop that! You can’t control me; deal with it!” I cried frustratedly after brushing off yet another compulsion, since it was starting to really piss me off.

I even gave him a little shake, prompting him to reflexively shout, “Oi, stop shaking me!”

I grimaced, shook him again (prompting another “Oi!”), and growled, “Ok, I’ll let that one slide, since it was reflexive, but really, _one_ more command out of your mouth, and I’ll make you unable to speak for the next week!”

He raised an eyebrow at that, trying to conceal the spike of worry and fear at my threat, and said, “Oh really? You can do that?”

I smirked.

“Oh yes. _My_ implanted suggestions can potentially last _years_ , though I really hate the idea of making one last that long, ‘cause that’s just _creepy_ as heck, even with genuine consent, but still. It’s a telepath thing.”

“What, the annoying care about _ethics_ or the long-lasting suggestions?”

“The latter, and hey, if it wasn’t for the adherence to ethics, civilization wouldn’t exist! Not like this, anyways. It’d be probably run by aliens now, or something. If we hadn’t killed each other with constant fighting first. Well, okay, it’s more the adherence to rules that does it, but ethics keeps the rules reasonable enough to work, for the most part. Granted, adherence to the rules of _mental_ ethics is more practical that anything, but still. It’s a _lot_ of work trying to cover up one’s own bad uses of mind control, even with memory wipes, ‘cause there’s always the risk of missing someone, and teaming up with another person with the same abilities to help with that problem has its own problems due to trust issues. There will always be one stronger than the other, and telepaths generally don’t trust each other enough to let the other read their mind enough to trust them, because it leaves them open to attack. But if all the telepaths involved follow ethics, team ups work MUCH better, ‘cause nobody has to worry much about the other doing something nasty to them. This is basically the main entire reason that the world is not currently run by telepaths, ‘cause there’s certainly enough of us to manage it if we do it right. Mutually assured destruction. It really is a lot more trouble than it’s worth when it can all fall to pieces at the drop of a hat.”

“How can you trust that the other person isn’t lying when they say they’re following ethics?” he asked, frowning.

Well, progress is progress, no matter how small.

“Well, you don’t at first. Trust must be earned. Still, it’s generally not hard to tell after a while, if you know the right questions to ask and what responses to watch out for. Then there’s the circumstances of getting into such a conversation in the first place. Also, most people follow a basic set of ethics instinctively or after being taught by their parents and society, so spotting a deviant from that norm is possible under the right circumstances. It’s a lot easier for telepaths, as you can imagine, unless it involves other telepaths. Then it’s quite an intricate dance of actions and accidentally projected emotions, as well as the skill of each individual telepath in the situation, and whether or not they knew each other before gaining their abilities, and a bunch of other things that get considered in the process.”

He considered all of this for a while, and I wasn’t impressed with his thought processes. He’d never been taught much as a child the concept of sharing, amongst other things, so he wasn’t really getting what I was saying properly.

I made a frustrated noise and said, “Ugh, you think like a kid. For the most part, anyway. Typical spoiled brat, you are.”

“Oi!”

“Well, it’s true. I’ve never seen such selfishness outside of kids, rich snobs, and sociopaths, and I can tell you, you _just_ about qualify as the last one, due to not caring about all the people you’ve killed.”

He looked affronted.

“I’ve never killed anyone!”

I raised an eyebrow at him. He actually believed that, mostly.

“Using your powers to make someone kill themselves or someone else is still you killing them. Murder is defined as an intentional act that results in the death of another. Mind control-caused death qualifies. If I made you slice your throat open with a knife, who killed you, you or me?”

I watched as he struggled with that concept; he knew I was right, but he didn’t want to accept it.

Wait, was that _guilt_ he’s hiding from? I checked again. It is!

Ha! His redeemability… ability… just went up!

Anyways, just like pretty much anyone who is in denial about something, he abruptly changed the topic.

“Can I get down now?” he huffed.

I snorted.

“DE-nial! Ah well, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about this later.”

He looked at me, worried.

“What do you mean by that?”

I smirked.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You’re coming with me!”

“NO!” came a shout from Jessica from around the stairs area, and she rushed into the room.

Apparently she had been listening this whole time, more or less, and I hadn’t consciously noticed because I was too focused on Kilgrave and she hadn’t been in my 10-foot alert range.

“Please, Christy, don’t take him away! I need him to get Hope out of jail!” she cried desperately, which I sensed was _not_ a thing she did often.

I raised an eyebrow at her but then softened. She was radiating fear, hopelessness, and guilt.

From what Hope told me, both verbally and through her memories, I could guess at what the guilt was about.

I tried to reassure her.

“Well, I wasn’t going to do it, like, _now_. I’m in no particular rush, either, now that I know for sure that he can’t control me. And after what Hope said when I saw her the other day, I figured I should talk to you about stuff first anyways.”

At the mention of Hope’s name, Jessica stiffened, and a mix of worry and anger flashed through her mind.

“You saw Hope?” she growled.

I frowned.

“Yeah. I heard about Kilgrave on the radio, and my group and I were pretty worried that a mind-controller had somehow slipped under our radar, so I visited her to check if she was telling the truth or not. She told me about you, and that finding you would probably help me find him, so I looked for you. You’re really hard to find, by the way. Found the police station that he freaked out, found your picture and the note on it, and came here.”

She only got madder, and I could sense what she was worried about, so I put up my hands and added, “I didn’t make her do anything! Nothing she didn’t ask for of her own free will, anyways!”

“What did you make her do?!?” she growled loudly.

“She wanted to feel peaceful and content for a while and was rather insistent about it, actually. So for a couple of minutes, that’s what I made her feel. I’m actually supposed to see her again tomorrow afternoon to see what she’s decided about my offer of therapy.”

“Therapy?!? THERAPY?!? In what sick world is mind control _therapy_?!?” she cried.

“Hey!” I cried back, annoyed. “It’s not _just_ mind control! It barely even _qualifies_ as mind control! Like I told her, it’s more speeding up the natural healing process by a LOT than what most people think of when they think of mind control! And whether or not I do it is ultimately up to her! If she decided not to take me up on my offer, I won’t do it! Not to mention that a large part of it is talk therapy with telepathy mixed in. AND she can always say no to whatever I suggest we do in the mind control/telepathy department. And it’s not like I haven’t done this before, though this would be the first time I’m treating a rape victim instead of someone with wartime PTSD. You’d be surprised how many military men I’ve seen in the last three months who are okay with this kind of therapy when it comes to their PTSD, especially when nothing else works. Still, it can’t be THAT much different, considering…”

Kilgrave let out an annoyed huff behind me, and we both turned towards him to find him with his arms crossed and him looking like a particularly petulant kid.

I raised an eyebrow at him (yes, I do that a lot), and barked, “What?” even though I knew very well what.

He clearly knew that, and he said grumpily, “Can’t you tell?”

I sighed.

“Making someone want to have sex with you is still rape, Kilgrave. Doubly so when the effect wears off and they realise what you did. If they don’t want to have sex with you of their own free will, meaning without any form of coercion, which mind control is, and you force them to, it’s rape. That’s basically the entire idea of it. Mind control without consent affecting the way someone thinks is mind rape, which is even worse.”

“Why are you even bothering explaining it to him? He’ll never get it,” complained Jessica.

I turned to her while Kilgrave stewed and answered, “And that sentiment is the cause of many a nut never getting it. You’d be surprised how well explaining the what-should-be-obvious works as a preliminary thing to therapy. For him especially, since he got his powers WAY too young for him to properly develop a moral compass. He’s a big spoiled brat of a big kid that needs to face what he’s done and have all his self-justifications torn down and examined before he can ever be redeemed. And I can sense the guilt he’s hiding from, so I know redemption IS possible for him; it’s just gonna take a while.”

Before Jessica could answer, Kilgrave suddenly looked up and demanded, “Oi! How did you know when I got my powers? I wasn’t thinking about it recently, and you were going on and on earlier about your precious _ethics_ , so I doubt you went into my mind for it.”

I bit my lip guiltily, then answered, “Well, I kinda snuck into your room last night and read your mind then. You qualify as a ‘bad guy’ and after all the stuff you’ve done, you lost your right to privacy of mind a LONG, long time ago. Granted, the ethics behind that idea is a point of contention amongst telepaths, but when not doing so potentially endangers lots of others, well… But you broke the rules of ethics for those with mind control, and that affects us all, so no telepath will argue against what I did. They’d probably be more pissed off that they didn’t get to you first! Or that I was so soft on you, though that depends on who you talk to.”

He actually looked surprised at than, and Jessica was having mixed feelings about it all.

I added, “Also, I’m not _quite_ your average hero type. I accept quite a few gray areas if the situation is desperate enough, though you should hear the debates I have with my mentor about some stuff. Oh, and I should probably mention this before I forget; that dose of anti-rejection meds you were going to take in a couple of days? I gave you that dose last night and used the syringe to take a blood sample from you. I had to get a sample of your virus so my team’s main biochemist could analyze it and see how it works. He’s working on an anti-viral and/or vaccine now. Just in case we need to neutralize your powers.”

Kilgrave’s eyes widened as I mentioned his virus, and he was rapidly shaking his head at me trying to get me to shut up, but Jessica caught on.

“His powers are a virus?!?” she exclaimed, shocked.

“Yup!” I said cheerily, while Kilgrave groaned.

“Hmm…” I mocked. “Looks like you don’t _like_ it when someone forces private information out of you! This can double as payback for doing similar to Jessica.”

I could sense what Jessica was about to say in response to that, so I pre-empted it with, “And no, Jessica, I didn’t read the specifics of that bit; I just know he did it. Say, my friend with the blood sample says finding someone immune to his powers would be a big help; have you ever met someone even somewhat resistant?”

Jessica barely had time to think about it when I felt a kind of… knowledge is the best way I can describe it… pass through Kilgrave’s mind, along with the word “ _Jessica_.

…

Was that what I thought it was?

I spun towards him.

“What was THAT?!?” I exclaimed, eyes shining.

I don’t think Kilgrave’s eyes could get any wider (and it was amusing to hear him swear up a storm in his mind); meanwhile, Jessica felt curious and interested.

“What?” she asked.

“He knows something, and I’m going to find out what.”

“Oh no, don’t you dare!” commanded Kilgrave before realizing what he just did and clapping his hands over his mouth and shaking his head vigourously with impossibly even WIDER eyes and actual FEAR radiating off of him. And was that regret?

I checked closer and found it was a more childlike form of regret, where they regret they did something because someone else would get mad rather than because it was wrong. Well, it’s a start, I guess.

Still…

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said, before reaching into his mind and turning off his voice.

He gave a few coughs, then started properly panicking.

“Oh, stop freaking out so much; it won’t ACTUALLY be a week! I’m not YOU! Since that command was unintentional, I’ll just leave it for a few minutes, but next time, it’s an hour, and the time after that, the rest of the day. Clear?”

He calmed down some and nodded vigourously. He was still panicking about what I was going to find in his mind, though.

Well, can’t be helped.

I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I wouldn’t REALLY turn off his voice for that long; just doing it for a few minutes was making me uncomfortable.

I dove in again and pulled out that knowledge that I sensed earlier.

I grinned at what I found.

“Oh, would you look at THAT! Jessica, you’re immune to him now! Have been ever since he made you kill Reva Connors!”

Guilt, shock, and anger flowed out of her.

“You… but… he…” she stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence with all the stress and shock.

Kilgrave at this point had figured out that ‘loud thinking’ thing and was mentally pleading me to not let Jessica kill him over this.

Well, DUH, I’m not gonna let her kill him, so I kept an eye on her as she tries to figure out how to feel and what to do about it.

She finally settled for turning to me and asking, “How does he know?”

“When you walked away from the scene, he called for you to come back, and despite still being in his range, you didn’t obey him. He tried again a couple of times, even adding ‘now!’ to it, and it still didn’t work. He’s tested you a couple of times since he got you here in subtle ways as well,” I answered.

Her eyes glazed over in remembrance as it all came back to her, and she gasped loudly.

Then she whirled on Kilgrave and pointed a finger forcefully at him, growling, “You knew! This _whole_ time, YOU _KNEW_! All that bullsh*t about not wanting to control me while YOU KNEW that you couldn’t! You sick _b*stard_ , you were never going to tell me, were you?!?”

Kilgrave pouted, crossed his arms, and mentally begged him to let him speak, and, sensing that they needed to have this out, I released my hold on his voice.

He coughed a little, then responded, “Not at first, no. I was _going_ to tell you maybe after you finally admitted your love for me of your own free will, but –”

Jessica interrupted him by throwing her head back and laughing disbelievingly.

“I knew you were insane, but I never thought you were delusional.”

“Oi, admit it, you loved me!”

“No! Oh, and it’s nice to be able to SAY that to you! I never, not for one _second_ – ”

“No, not _one_ second, _eighteen_.”

“In what universe?!?”

“Ours. On that rooftop. It had been twelve hours, and I hadn’t told you to do anything in that time. And for eighteen seconds, I wasn’t controlling you. And you stayed with me. You even kissed me. Of your own free will. You remember, don’t you?”

A chill flashed through Jessica as she remembered the incident, but Kilgrave’s remembrance felt off.

“Oh, I remember. I remember _everything_! I had waited so long for that moment, so I asked you to finish up our activities inside, and you listened. I was finally, _finally_ free of you and you weren’t around to stop me, so I got up onto that ledge and prepared to jump.”

“But you didn’t jump.” He looked confused.

Jessica’s nostrils flared.

“No. You caught me before I could. I wasn’t fast enough. Getting you out of my mind was like prying fungus off a window. I. Couldn’t. _THINK_.”

I shuddered in disgust, and interrupted with, “Ugh… THIS is what I mean by mind rape. Honestly, if it wasn’t for that one telepath that made a total heel face turn who did similar things to what you did, though even she wasn’t THAT bad, and from what I saw in your mind earlier, I’d be inclined to just drag you back to the mansion, throw you in a dungeon, and leave you there.”

Kilgrave looked frantic.

“But, but, I remember! She kissed me!”

I was about to respond when Jessica beat me to it.

“You remember wrong! When I got off that ledge, I didn’t do it right away until you said, ‘NOW Jessica!’ in that way of yours. You were so mad that I didn’t _appreciate_ all you did for me that you told me to cut off my ears. You stopped me before I did much, but I still have the scar.”

She pulled back her hair and showed him her scar, but he was too high up to see properly, so I lowered him down close enough.

He reached out to touch it, and it was a good thing I had a rudimentary shield around him as part of my hold, because Jessica managed to surprise me and punch him. Oh, I hate split-second impulses… not that I would have stopped her or anything, but still…

The shield wasn’t quite strong enough to block the whole blow, so I let him fly back a few feet before stopping him to prevent damage to his internal organs.

Jessica then realized what she did and looked at me fearfully while Kilgrave complained.

“What?” I asked her. “I’m not stopping you. I’m not gonna let you kill him, but he _totally_ deserved at least _that_! As probably his longest victim that survived, you get first dibs on deciding his punishment. It just can’t involve regular jail, ‘cause come on, a mind controller in jail? He’d never even make it into _handcuffs_! Even if he let himself get imprisoned, he’d make everyone treat him like a king in there! Not really a punishment, Jessica.”

Clearly that had been the plan, more or less, because her face crumpled, hopelessness radiated from her, and Hope’s name jumped to the front of her mind.

I flinched back a bit at the intensity of the emotion, and Jessica noticed. But to my surprise, her flash of anger turned into resignation.

“Fine. Do whatever, then. I just don’t care anymore,” she mumbled before heading to the kitchen for a bottle of whiskey.

Before Kilgrave could come out with the snarky comment he was thinking of, I called out, “I have an idea what to do about Hope.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, but didn’t turn around, unsure if she should trust me or not and wondering if she could risk NOT trusting me.

I waited until she decided to listen to me before continuing.

“There are a couple of options here. One option is to prove that Kilgrave DOES have mind control abilities and used them to make Hope kill her parents by using testimony from the several officers at the station he terrorized yesterday and getting a shrink to testify to Hope’s current mental state as it pertains to the death of her parents. If convicted, I can have some strings pulled – legally, mind; no mind control required – to get him sent to an obscure military prison that really ends up being the dungeon of my group’s base so that it can hold him. This has a bunch of problems with it, since bringing the existence of mind control to the public’s attention so blatantly obviously is not something my group finds an ideal situation. The chaos it would cause now… We’re working on catching as many bad mind controllers as we can and setting up systems to vett people claiming to have been mind controlled for the liars and the truth-tellers before we spread the word, so to speak.”

Jessica’s brow furrowed as she considered this option, while Kilgrave looked both intrigued at the thought put into this and the idea of a group of people he didn’t know about, and worried at what was going to happen to him.

“What exactly IS your group?” she finally asked.

“I didn’t mention that yet? Huh. Oh well, basically it’s a group of mutant supers with all sorts of powers co-operating to take down other superpowered criminals, especially if they can’t be handled by conventional means. SHIELD is pretty good at handling a bunch of powers, but their telepathic dampers leave much to be desired, and they can’t be everywhere with the right technology all the time, especially now that they’re STILL rebuilding after the Incident. We end up helping them out on occasion, actually. We were kinda busy with a smaller invasion during the Incident… Well, I say we; I didn’t even have any powers yet and still lived in Seattle at the time, so… Anyway, that’s not important for now; basically, we’re a group of mutants who keep other mutants in check and help keep the world safe.”

“Mutants?” both Kilgrave and Jessica asked at the same time, resulting in Kilgrave giving Jessica a smug look and Jessica glaring daggers at him.

“There are three main types of powered people. Mutants, who get their powers generally around puberty and usually during a stressful situation and whose powers are determined by their mutant gene, the Enhanced, what you call ‘Gifted’, who get their powers via experiments or accidental contact with certain chemicals, though there IS apparently a genetic component to who is susceptible to that, and the InHumans, who are basically the result of an ancient alien hybrid-making experiment that results in some people getting powers from a type of crystal that kills anyone else.” 

Technically, there is another type of powered person called an Imbued, which means they got powers from some spirit-like entity or something like that, but after the Phoenix incident, they’re not much of a problem for now, so I wasn’t going to mention that.

“You made it sound like there was a group of telepaths when you went on about the ethics of mind control,” pointed out Kilgrave.

“Three is plenty. That includes me now, even though I’ve only been a telepath for five months now. We DO communicate with other telepaths around the world, and there’s apparently an annual meeting on the astral plane – it’s a telepath thing and a long story, so don’t ask – that I get to go to next month now that I have telepathy. It’s where we all get together and discuss a bunch of stuff, though getting the timing right for that is apparently quite a chore. Can’t wait, though! Anyways, yeah, there is a group; it’s just not the one I’m talking about now. There’s only three telepaths on the team now, including me, like I said. One of them is on the backup team for if your mind control worked on me and my failsafes triggered.”

They looked confused, so I elaborated, “If you had managed to put me under your control, my mind would have sent out a huge knockout pulse of telepathic energy that would both knock ME out and take out anybody within about a hundred feet of me. It would also act like a big beacon, and my backup team would come and collect us. My telepath friend would keep you asleep, and we’d both end up back at our base in rooms designed to hold us, though in my case, I’d end up in the middle of a hundred foot circle in the deepest part of the basement until your control wore off or one of the other telepaths got rid of the compulsion. Which reminds me, I gotta contact them to tell them I’m alright. And I probably should take care of the compulsions on the still sleeping servants. I already did Hank here, though I probably should get the rest of the guards while I’m at it.”

Hank, for his part, was just watching the whole thing, intrigued, and gave me a nod of thanks, despite his continuing loyalty to his client.

Jessica and Kilgrave, on the other hand, were both staring at me with their jaws on the floor.

“You… you can remove his control over someone?!?” gasped Jessica.

I blinked.

“Yeah. Mind control is mind control, regardless of the source. It has the same basic effect, so all I have to do is override that effect with my own and release the person, and voila! No more compulsions! It _does_ require that I be more powerful than the original mind controller, but I have yet to meet anyone stronger than me, and this particular version of mind control is pretty pathetic in power level compared to the average telepath, so it really wasn’t a problem for me.”

At THAT insinuation, Jessica was disbelieving, and Kilgrave was both insulted and a bit scared.

“Well, okay,” I amended, “the average telepath is pretty close in power level to this, but the average _problem-causing_ telepath tends to be quite a bit more powerful. Granted, give a teenager mind control powers, and you can’t expect them NOT to abuse it in some way, but it’s usually small stuff, and more females than males get it, and sometimes even in close proximity to one another, so rapes happen less often than you might think, especially since there are so few male telepaths* around to begin with and mutants in general tend to be rather attractive as a rule, so it’s usually only psycho ones that do it. There are, like, ten male telepaths on the whole planet, fifteen tops, and only two had to be punished by the group for misuse of power, and hoo boy, we are getting WAAAY off topic here…”

I shook my head to clear it.

“Anyways, before I go get rid of all that mind control, I want to give you my second option for the Hope problem and then I’ll let you think about it while I make my rounds. I won’t hear your thoughts that way unless you outright panic about it, especially if I’m in the middle of removing a compulsion, so you can have some mental privacy there. I’ll even carry this guy around with me so he won’t bother you.”

I pointed back towards Kilgrave with my thumb.

Jessica, who had been giving me a bewildered look during my info-dump, suddenly focussed on me and considered my words before nodding and saying, “Fine. What’s the other option?”

“We get her to claim temporary insanity from the trauma of being kidnapped and raped and I get my mentor to pull some legal strings to get him to verify that – without telling them about his abilities, mind; he IS a licensed psychiatrist – and get a quick court pulled up hush-hush-like and get the whole thing taken care of quickly. _Some_ mental convincing may be required in either option, this one more than the first, but if you want her cleared legally and have less trouble with the outside world…”

Jessica frowned and thought about it a bit before looking back up at me and saying, “You can go now. I’ll think about it.”

I nodded at her and turned to leave.

As I was about to go, I turned my head back towards her and said, “By the way, the offer of therapy extends to you as well. And you can go visit Hope if you want to discuss it with her later, though it would probably help the both of you if you thought about it a good bit before going. Just something to consider.”

She looked at me warily but nodded anyways.

I inclined my head towards her in acknowledgement, then turned and walked outside, pulling a complaining Kilgrave along with me.

I think I’ll start with the guards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s where I’m ending this chapter. Gah, nowhere else would fit! Sorry it got this long…
> 
> *I’m not saying that females don’t rape; I’m saying that so far, there haven’t been any female telepath rapists as of this story as far as Christy is aware of. Emma Frost never had to MAKE anyone want to have sex with her, and actually used her powers to avoid it with certain unsavory characters. Not that she didn’t use sex to get what she wanted, despite her telepathy, but that isn’t rape. Mind rape, yeah, if and when she messed around in there, but that’s a different can of worms and falls under a much bigger umbrella. And there really ARE a ton more female telepaths than male ones in the Marvel comic-verse, apparently, so it’s considerably easier to track down fifteen male telepaths than it is the hundred or so female ones.


End file.
